The present invention relates to a medicine packing apparatus, particularly to a medicine packing apparatus having a mechanism adapted to feed medicines to a packing section disposed in one place.
Conventionally, there has been produced a medicine packing apparatus that is provided with a plurality of medicine feeders and that can automatically feed medicines in accordance with prescription data. The medicines fed from the medicine feeders are collected in one place through a hopper and then packed by individual dose in a packing section.
However, in the aforementioned medicine packing apparatus, the medicines fed from each medicine feeder are recovered in the same hopper in spite of being many kinds of medicines. Thus, when fine powder of medicines remains in the hopper, the powder has a possibility of adhering to the surface of the medicines that consequently pass through the hopper. For example, when fine powder of pyrazolone medicine adheres to nonpyrazolone medicine, there arises a problem that some patient may have an allergic reaction.
On the other hand, the hopper needs to be disposed in a narrow space between the medicine feeders and the packing section, and therefore, the hopper cannot be formed with a large dimension in a vertical direction. Therefore, in order to increase the number of the medicine feeders, the space necessary for disposing the hoppers has to be extended in a horizontal direction. Thus, recovering the medicines with the single hopper reduces the inclined angle of the inner surface of the hopper, making it difficult to reliably smoothly recover the medicines to pack them.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a medicine packing apparatus that can reliably smoothly recover different kinds of medicines separately and pack them.
As a means to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a medicine packing apparatus which feeds medicines in accordance with prescription data to distribute by individual dose and pack them, wherein the apparatus is provided with hoppers with at least two passages separated, and wherein each hopper can feed a different kind of medicine.
According to this construction, the medicines contained in the medicine feeders can be fed through the different hoppers in accordance with the kind of medicine. Therefore, even if the fine powder of the medicine remains in the hopper, the powder of one medicine never adheres to a different kind of medicine. In addition, even if the medicine feeders are positioned within a wide range (distance) in a horizontal direction, it is possible to make the inclined angle of the inner surface of each hopper large, allowing the medicines to be reliably smoothly directed to the lower opening.
It is preferable that a common hopper is detachably provided between a medicine packing position and each hopper, and that a medicine delivery means for delivering the medicines dropped from the hopper to the common hopper is also provided beneath the lower end of the hopper which can not directly feed the medicine to the common hopper. Thus, even if the medicine feeders are positioned over a wide range (distance) in a horizontal direction to increase the number of the hoppers, it is possible to recover the medicines to distribute and pack them.